Drawing Operations, collaboration between an artist and a robotic arm, New York, USA

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Drawing Operations is an ongoing collaboration between an artist and a robotic arm. The project investigates ideas of automation, autonomy, and collaboration as an exercise in behavioral empathy.
Sougwen Chung and her Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 1, (D.O.U.G._1) explore mimicry and procedural mark-making as a simple drawing performance between a human and mechanical agent. Alongside developer Yotam Mann, the behavior of the robotic arm was designed to mimic the drawn gesture in real time through the use of a ceiling-mounted camera and computer vision. As D.O.U.G., the robotic arm, interprets the mark of the drawing collaborator, the human agent then responds in kind, resulting in a synchronous, interpretive performance.
Drawing Operations is the first stage of an ongoing study examining human and robotic interaction as an artistic collaboration. Further stages include will examine memory, autonomy, and agency.
Credits
Sougwen Chung, Artist
In collaboration with
Yotam Mann
Commissioned by
New Inc / New Museum
New Hive
Thanks to Square Fabrication, & Slanted Studios.
Debuted at Rebull Studios NY.

Artist Sougwen Chung built a robot arm that draws in harmony with her in order to gain a better understanding of how humans relate to robots. With the project, dubbed "Drawing Operations Unit" (or DOUG for short), she hopes to counter prevailing media representations of robots as adversarial to their human counterparts. Check out the video above to see Chung and DOUG in action.